


Love In Waiting Through Death

by BookWerm



Series: Short Torchwood Stories [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s03e04 Children of Earth - Day 4, Jack Harkness deserves all the love, M/M, The Year That Never Was (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24261964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookWerm/pseuds/BookWerm
Summary: Jack came back from the Year that never was, scarred, traumatized, and hoping for another chance. Ianto gives it to him.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Short Torchwood Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749835
Kudos: 33





	Love In Waiting Through Death

On their third date after he got back, Jack went with Ianto back to his flat, and they sat on the couch together. 

“I told you I would tell the truth,” he began,”Of where I was when I was gone. But just know this is hard for me. It’s going to take some time.”

Ianto looked him in the eyes, and squeezed his hand. “It’s alright. I’m not going anywhere.”

And with that, Jack did something Ianto had never seen him do before. He started crying.

“Oh, but you did.” 

It took a few minutes for him to calm down, and Ianto rubbed his back in circles, not telling him to be quiet, to calm down, just being there for him.

Jack laughed awkwardly. “Look at me, I’m a mess.” He took a deep breath. “But I told you I’d tell you, and I will.”

“You know already why I left. The Doctor. I needed to know if he could fix me, needed to know why I was this way. And he told me alright. He told me I was wrong, that he couldn’t look at me. That I couldn’t be fixed. The TARDIS travelled to the end of the universe to get rid of me. In a way, it’s all my fault what happened.”

What did happen? Even though he’d spent months back here, Jack had said nothing about his time away, leaving the rest of the team to guess, and guess they did. He acted just like normal, except when he thought no one was looking. Then you could see a lost look in his eyes.

He had promised Ianto, though, back on the first date, that he would tell him eventually, when he was ready. And here they were.

Jack took a deep breath and started again.

“The Doctor, he’s a Timelord. The only one left, or at least that was what he thought. Apparently I-,” he raised an eyebrow at this,”Tell him otherwise. But, anyway, there we were at the end of the universe, in a refugee camp taking off to Utopia of all places, when the m-” he shuddered slightly here,” the only other Timelord stole the TARDIS and used it to travel back to what would be almost two years ago now.”

“Really?” Ianto couldn’t help but ask. “Would I know about this, then?”

Jack’s normal, grand smile almost slipped itself back on here. The one he wore when he needed to pretend everything is fine.

“Kind of. HIs name was Harold Saxon.”

“Harold Saxon? I voted for him…”

“I know. HIs real name was the Master.” Jack flinched a bit when saying this, as if expecting to be hit. “And when we finally got back to this time, using  _ my  _ vortex manipulator, he had manipulated everyone into voting for him using the Archangel Network. Had Martha JOnes’ family being hunted down. He was the reason you were investigating the Himalayas, of all places.”

“Ah,” said Ianto.”That was weird.”

He was finding this hard to believe, but no harder than anything else he encountered on a daily basis. It had to be true. 

“He had a plan. He used the TARDIS as a paradox machine, and on the day of the election, he brought the Toclafane through a tear in the sky and slaughtered one tenth of the population. He captured me, and Martha, and the Doctor. We were trapped with a psychopathic dictator for a whole year.”

“A year? But it was only four months… what happened?”

Jack smiled grimly.

“You may as well ask what didn’t happen. He had fun killing me, torturing me, every day, and every time I would wake up alone, or with him looming over me. Never anything else. Until one day, there was. He had gotten bored and captured all of you, the Torchwood rebellion, as famous as Martha herself,” he said this part with a proud huff that quickly dimmed.

“And then he tortured you, one by one, in front of me. Except for you. I’m not sure I’m ready to say what happened yet, Ianto. I’m sorry. I promised.” he looked up with pleading eyes.

“It’s alright, cariad. You don’t have to tell me.”

They sat in silence together for a short while, Jack’s head laying on Ianto’s shoulder.

He started again. “Eventuallly it was all over. We broke the paradox machine. For everyone but a handful of people, the whole year never happened. No one died. And the Doctor dropped me off right when the paradox would have started, to preserve timelines. Everything’s fine. It never happened, Ianto.”

“It’s okay for it not to be fine, Jack. It’s not fine. It happened to you.”

And from that moment on, Ianto promised himself, he would never let Jack come back from the dead alone. He would always be there.

The rest of the night was quiet, though not calm. Ianto was there for Jack, and helped him down from his nightmares. 

(One of which he never quite woke up from, whimpering for Ianto, and it hurt.)

Just because it never happened, doesn’t mean it never was.

Bonus:

He told himself that he would never let jack come back to life alone again, never let him forget that he was there for him, and he meant it. 

Every one that he missed, even by a second, hurt. It hurt to see the look in Jack’s eyes, the confused pained look before he knew where he was, it hurt to know he had to go through that alone sometimes, no matter how hard Ianto tried.

So even though Jack had just admitted to assisting in the kidnapping of twelve children (who wouldn’t be missed? There were so many times someone could have said that about Ianto), even though that hurt and shocked and meant what was happening now might be because of him, Ianto still didn’t let him be alone, even for a second. He ran to Jack, cradling his head, being there for him, and waited.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually got 1,000 words. I thought this one would be a lot shorter. Please comment if you have any questions, criticism, prompts. I'd love to do better at writing.


End file.
